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buying intel macbook pro - am I crazy?

M

majkom

macrumors 68000
Original poster
May 3, 2011
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Hi guys,

I am trying to solve my Homeoffice situation. Long story short, identified 2 scenarios:

- buying macbook air and external display - seemed as perfect solution to me, unfortunately got no dedicated room for office, so I just made little onwall table in bedroom - and idea of having external display mounted on wall (in bedroom, where we do sleep with little toddler) does not make me too much confident about this option (I do not prefer having electronics in bedroom and place where monitor would be mounted is too low to be safe from toddlers)

- stay on macbook without external display - in that case, would prefer as big screen as possible - so obviously macbook pro 16 (this one has several advantages - portable big screen - when need to leave bedroom, when leaving home for several days - bigger screen would be with me), but of course, it aint 27incher:) but what really bothers me is pwm (in first scenario I would have flicker free dell monitor).

So, if I will go scenario 2, I know then intel is dead and so on, but now I can get new intel i7 16incher for the price of 14incher M1. I dont need any extra power, all i do is:
- ms excel heavy liftung and ordinary outlook/word processing/presentations.. nothing special

Actually, I may use windiows from time to time on intel macbook (and maybe play some games, form time to time)... even pwm freq on intel one is much higher than on m1 one...

so am I crazy leaning towards buying intel macboolk pro now??
 
Nothing wrong with Intel Macs.

You're doing someone a favor for buying the originally $2,399 14nm 2019 16" at $1,899.99 when the 5nm 2021 14" is $1,999.

I expect Software Updates to end as late as 2026 & Security Updates as late as 2029.

I'd pick up a sub-1nm 2029 or 2030 Mac after a decade.

Many here should realize that having >1 computer whether laptop and/or desktop is not a norm in most peoples lives.

More often than not a smartphone is the primary/sole computer for most people so suggesting to have a Mac, Windows, Androids, iPhone, iPad, etc is laughable.
 
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as i wrote at the beginning, do not have dedicated room for office, so external display is almost no go...

would say that 16 inch mb air would be best fit for me, unfortunatelly, does not exist:)
 
If you want to run x64 windows (gaming, boot camp, etc.), you need an Intel Mac.

I think that if you're in the Mac ecosystem let go of the training wheels and get off windows personally, but if you need windows then intel is really the only option.
 
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majkom said:
as i wrote at the beginning, do not have dedicated room for office, so external display is almost no go...

would say that 16 inch mb air would be best fit for me, unfortunatelly, does not exist:)
Click to expand...
As someone who has struggled similarly, I understand your consideration. And the only thing that would hurt me about doing what you propose is that the 16” intel MBPro is absolutely overpriced for your needs. But seems to hit your wants. It’s not like the machine is garbage, and it will do what you want of it, so go for it.
 
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seems to me that  will fully support only their ARM processors until the next *solar flare.
spending money on an intel MacBook is not wise future wise, unless they are stopping  OS with Mojave.

(*dont know if earth had a sole flare yet tho)
 
how you go to your conclusion is perfectly reasonable, but I think you’ll regret it. Intel is on the way out, not to mention that you’d be buying a hot, loud laptop well above your needs just to get a few extra inches of display real estate.

It really comes down to how much you think you’ll actually need more than the 13” display. If it’s not that often, maybe look into a portable usb c monitor that you could remove from the desk/wall. If you’d need it every day and there’s no other way then you may need to bite the bullet and get the Intel machine.
 
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If it was considerably cheaper then I see your logic, but at that price, just lose 2” of screen space and get the 14” if you have that much money to play with? The performance and longevity you’ll get from an M1 Pro will make it worth the trade off easily.
 
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Personally I expect OS support for Intel macs to be Pretty shortlived. In the presentation they said support “for years to come” but that could be Monterey and 2 more years. Given what happened in the PowerPC transition, buying an Intel MacBook Pro seems a rather substantial gamble on Apple’s generosity with updates.

In your position I would probably dip a bit deeper into the purse and get an 16” M1 Pro MacBook. The screen area seems to be really important to you, and it’s hardware that is not going to lose its value anytime soon.
 
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just buy a cheap windows system if you need windows or keep your current system. Go with the M1 over intel system; your future self will thank you.
 
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If you have the eyesight for it, get the 14” MacBook Pro and bump the display resolution in System Preferences so you get more effective screen real estate in the same area. (If you live near a store that has working Apple products on display, you’re able to change the display resolution on the display models so you can test it out and see if it’d work.)

That’s substantially helped me adjust from a 27” 5K iMac to the 24” iMac. Buying an Intel-based Mac, as others have said, is probably ill-advised at this point unless you have a specific reason why you need Intel.
 
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Other option based on your use case (very similar to mine but I also have home office); get a M1 mbp plus a 12.9in iPad Pro and use sidecar for two screens. You can hit the same price point and have 26 total inches of screen. I use this while working from coffee shops and can handle all the excel/office/sysadmin tasks easily. Having owned many 15in MBP I can tell you two smaller screens will always beat one… medium… screen.
 
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majkom said:
would say that 16 inch mb air would be best fit for me, unfortunatelly, does not exist:)
Click to expand...

If a MBA 16" M1 16GB 512GB for $1,499-1,999 were released 13 months ago that was using the MBP 16" body I'd have bought one.
 
If you're considering the intel versions anyway and might even be using windows, why not have a look at the Dell XPS 15 and Dell XPS 17?

Before I got my M1 Macbook Air my daily driver was a Dell XPS 13. And honestly it did a really great job. Dell has terrible quality control and in the beginning my screen and speakers had to be changed (Dell service came to my house and did it on site though). And once those flaws were fixed, it was a tremendous laptop that I still sometimes miss from time to time. Especially the window management is still driving me nuts a year later and I think in that regard, windows is just vastly superior, even though I hate to admit it.

For the money of the new Macbook Pros you do get a reasonable specced Dell machine with a bigger screen, if you really don't want to work with an external monitor.

Alternatively I think an M1 Air plus the best looking, thin bezeled monitor on a vesa mount arm attached to the wall will do the trick. That way it doesn't have to intrude in the bedroom atmosphere too much, can be swiveled away out of toddlers reach and will safe you a lot of money. You can even get creative and build a little wooden box around the screen that you can close when not in use. If the screen is close to the wall and you get a thin model, that box wouldn't have to stick out from the wall very far and could look really good as well.

This is one way to do it: http://downrightsimple.blogspot.com/2015/03/outdoor-tv-cabinet.html

And as a last version, you can have a look for used intel macbooks. The prices should have gone down by now and everyone I know made positive experiences buying 2nd hand Apple.

A new intel Macbook I would not buy at this point in time. No way. Once you go fanless you don't want to go back.

Good luck with your decision! :)
 
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I have an i7 mini, but I don’t run anything Windows on my Mac any longer. Built a PC to take that load off since it takes too much storage space and resources.

If there’s something Windows specific you need to run, I’d go for a Lenovo or ASUS. After a while, if you’ve got the room, just buy a Mac mini or iMac in the future. Give or take a few years, I suspect Windows users may ditch X86 in favor of the ARM versions since price and performance will be better.

Take it from someone who bought a PowerBook G4 in the summer of 2005, you’ll regret the decision about 1-2 years later once you saw the first Intel Macs. That’s $2500 down the drain on Motorola’s junk pile chip set just because I was pissed there wouldn’t be a PowerBook G5. Weigh it out before you commit. And I’ve had a MacBook and MacBook Pro since that time, I never went back to the 15-inch screen and was very happy with 13 inch size. You won’t miss it. The MBP 14” M1Pro would be the machine I’d buy in your position.

Once the next generation of M chips are released, I think the Mac community (along with Windows and Linux) will just forget about Intel.

Also, Excel runs better on the M1 Macs than the Intel versions.
 
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majkom said:
Hi guys,

I am trying to solve my Homeoffice situation. Long story short, identified 2 scenarios:

- buying macbook air and external display - seemed as perfect solution to me, unfortunately got no dedicated room for office, so I just made little onwall table in bedroom - and idea of having external display mounted on wall (in bedroom, where we do sleep with little toddler) does not make me too much confident about this option (I do not prefer having electronics in bedroom and place where monitor would be mounted is too low to be safe from toddlers)

- stay on macbook without external display - in that case, would prefer as big screen as possible - so obviously macbook pro 16 (this one has several advantages - portable big screen - when need to leave bedroom, when leaving home for several days - bigger screen would be with me), but of course, it aint 27incher:) but what really bothers me is pwm (in first scenario I would have flicker free dell monitor).

So, if I will go scenario 2, I know then intel is dead and so on, but now I can get new intel i7 16incher for the price of 14incher M1. I dont need any extra power, all i do is:
- ms excel heavy liftung and ordinary outlook/word processing/presentations.. nothing special

Actually, I may use windiows from time to time on intel macbook (and maybe play some games, form time to time)... even pwm freq on intel one is much higher than on m1 one...

so am I crazy leaning towards buying intel macboolk pro now??
Click to expand...
I would think a beefed up MacBook Air would be perfect for your needs, or even the Mac Mini
 
Guys, 14incher makes no sense, already got some 14inch ****** win laptop, i can go straight to mb air instead on mb pro 14 inch (for less than half of the price)… 16inch at least gives me more screen space
 
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